Sushi Mimi

I realize I have been remiss in my restaurant review duties by not dedicating on blog to my favorite Japanese restaurant in the area: Sushi Mimi. It is a small restaurant that seats about 30 - 40 between the sushi bar and the tables.

I think they recognize us there now because we eat there at least once a week. We were there on Friday night for dinner and John asked the waiter what sake he would recommend and it happened to be the same guy he asked the same question to the week before! The waiter in under 18 and does not drink and can't recommend anything and he remembered that John asked him the question last week as well. His reommendation, after saying he was too young, was the more expensive the better. What a hoot!

We started with sushi as usual. Salmon, Unagi, spider roll, Tuna, and California roll. Yum yum. This was the one time since we have been coming here that three separate waiters stopped by our table to ask us if we were ready to order our entrees even before we had received the sushi. Very unusual. John likes a lag between the starters and the entrees so big faux pas for him -- he finally told the last waitress to wait till we got the sushi to come back for our orders.

The sushi fish is always fresh and the spider roll which was our treat for the evening was nice and crunchy.

Since the sushi was filling we got appetizers for our main course. I had the shrimp cakes and John had a fish dish. They were both very nice and mine came with some tempura. It was the first time I had shitake mushroom tempura. Interesting.

Dinner was as always great. Sushi Mimi staff are really friendly but every once in a while they either forget you exist or are overly attentive. We go there about once a week and a reasonable dinner for two with some alcohol is roughly $60 - $65 and if the sake is a beer instead the bill can be as low as $50. On top of that you get a hearty welcome and goodbye with your entrances and exits. What more could you ask for?

Hamamori Restaurant Lounge

About two weekends ago on Sunday we went to Hamamori Restaurant Lounge on the second floor the South Coast Plaza Mall. It was hard to believe it was a restaurant in a mall! The decor was adorned with exquisite crystal chandeliers. The seating was very very comfortable white leather chairs. Our table overlooked Bear street but there was a certain sense of serenity and real detachment from the mall-headed cars below.

The food feels like Japanese bistro-like. We started with Sushi which was rather expensive we had 2 Abacore, 2 Salmon, and 4 Unagi (my favorite) all $2.50 - $3.00 apiece -- a little on the expensive side.

For entrees John had Tamari Marinated Black Cod ($24) and I had the Kobe Hamburger Steak ($20). Both dishes were very well done. The cod was flaky with just right doneness and the Kobe hamburger steak was very tender. I had it well done because I can't stand underdone meat -- I apologize to all the Kobe beef purists out there. The next question you ask is why then do you eat some raw fish? My answer to that is my favorite sushi is unagi which is cooked and the only raw fish I can seem to handle is salmon and the various kinds of Tuna -- my limit on the raw is about 4 - 6 pieces and not so good things begin to happen. My least favorite is Uni (sea urchin) ugh! The consitency is horribly slimy. John eats it shrugs and says it tastes of the harbor what is the big deal. 'Nuff said. Fish I can swallow meat I have to chew --therin lies the difference.

In all, hamburger steak simply melted in my mouth and the fish did the same in its own fashion. The sauces with both dishes were delightful but sparse so I was one step away from licking my plate! The sushi was incredibly fresh and well made.

The restaurant finally filled up once we had been there for about 45 minutes. The service was great and I did not make a fool of myself with chopsticks. We did make a mess of the white table cloth. There were soy sauce rings of various shapes on it to commemorate the slipping of one of the sushi pieces out of the grip of the chop sticks and splashing into the awaiting soy sauce dish. Can't take us anywhere!

Overall, great restaurant, wonderful seating, decor, service, and food. Somewhat expensive. I would eat the sushi part of my meal at Sushi Mimi anyday. $2.50 a piece for sushi?!?!?! Highway robbery. Dinner can run $75+ per person so it is a good place for a celebratory dinner. Who would have thought fine dining in a mall?

The Harp Inn & Tijuana Dogs

Last night Janet and John went out! whoohoo! A friend of John's from the play circuit, Tara, invited us to the Harp Inn, an Irish Pub in Costa Mesa, to see her favorite band Tijuana Dogs play. Amazingly it was $5 cover to get in. It was a 40th birthday party for one of the ladies - I blank on her name now. John must have felt just great being the man at the table there were almost 10 ladies and no guys at our tables.

The band showed up late, they normally play at 9pm but they showed up at 9:30pm and started playing at about 9:50pm. At least the lead singer apologized. Tara is in love with the lead singer Matt Mauser (he's married with a little one though). She said she found out recently her brother had known him a couple of years back (he got a shout out from the band during a performance) and was furious because he could have set them up and they would have been married with kids by now. She is pretty funny.

Jules who is a corporate sales person for AMEX was fun as well we talked quite a bit.

The birthday girl did shots at the bar with a few of the other ladies to loosen themselves up and celebrate. When the music came on , they were on the dance floor like Speedy Gonzaleses. By the time we left they were still shaking their groove thing on the minute dance floor. Here a link to a You Tube video of a TD performance at the Harp Inn in September.

The band did a some popular 80's pop and rock music and some Johnny Cash country song. They were quite diverse. When we left they were even singing I keep Forgetting by Michael McDonald. Generally it was what I call white boy music and considering the crowd I would call it apt. For most of the night there was only me and by the end of the night there were maybe three. Oh well, this is after all Costa Mesa maybe I should hang out in Irvine.

Update on screenwriting class

It has been a crazy few weeks between work, class, and following the Zimbabwe disaster of an election that I have not been able to write. It is no excuse for my loyal readers (all 2 of them who I love dearly).

Well, screen writing class is a bust. I attended the class on 4/3 and Mr. Weber did not show up and did not leave a note to say class had been cancelled. I understood from my class mates that the time before he put on a video and dissapeared and never came back.

While we were witching about his shotty attendance. If you can believe was even worse than last semester, Mr. Carter came in. He happened to be a course evaluator sent by the dean to see what was going on. He caught us in mid-witch mode.

The man has not given us new assignments or given us back the assignments we did hand to him. He has not sent email to say what is up or to tell us that he cannot attend class. I still don't have my script from last semester with corrections. What a pain!

I went to last week's class and can you believe it it was dark in the class room not a soul in sight. Ahhh! About 5-10 minutes of waiting and another guy showed up. He later left and so did I. He did say before he left that Mr. Carter said there was going to be class that night. I guess that did not work out.

during the weekend my hubby and I went to the local B&N for our regular bout of book shopping and ran into a classmate from the class. He mentioned that Mr. Carter was going to teach the class from now on and Mr. Weber was history. He decided to drop the class.

I guess I will be doing that too. It is highly irresponsible to have class attendees lose money or even possibly not be able to graduate because of an unreliable instructor. Humph!

Anyway. My paperwork is on the way.

Mid Term in Design Class

This week was midterm in design class so I had to step up some of my pieces to present. Very nerve wracking as I was still working on some sketches right up to Tuesday night! I think I still have an A.

Toys

Logos (sports footwear)

Fantasy (Dragons -- I love dragons!)

Not the best picture though ...

Designer (Steve Madden)

Beachware

3-D (this was hard!!)

Doodles

Going into week 12 it gets a little tougher because we start sketching designer stuff and think about sculpting in foam. Uhhh... I'm hosed.

We have to look at stuff from Eames I can't remember the other guy's name. but there is this block wooden stool by Ray and Charles Eames that I absolutely adore because it reminds me of African wooden stools.

There are a number of other furniture designers at the website: Design Within Reach. Some of the stuff is really really cool.

TTFN